What you’re doing when you invest in the S&P GSCI is buying monthly futures contracts for each of these commodities. If you decide to simply put a thousand dollars into the S&P GSCI and leave it there, the same way you might with a mutual fund, this is a little more complicated—what you’re really doing is buying twenty-four different monthly futures contracts, and then at the end of each month you’re selling the expiring contracts and buying a new set of twenty-four contracts. After all, if you didn’t sell those futures contracts, someone would actually be delivering barrels of oil to your
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